How sad is it when a company has to review its own products on its blog?

Beginning this week, under-12s are banned from the first seven rows of economy class on AirAsia X flights to China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Australia and Nepal.

Brilliant.

Bored of getting your inbox filled with comments from your WordPress Blog? Want’s to see those comments in the Notification Center on your Mac? Wants to see how many unread (and total!) comments are on your blog at a glance? Comments.app is your new friend, it’ll let you know, and one click later, you’re approving, marking as spam or replying.

Downloaded.

A reader emailed me about these this morning — the workmanship in these handmade guitars looks incredible. I also watched the video clip on Bill Wise, the guy who makes them — definitely worthwhile if you have a few minutes.

Surrounded by overly excited family and friends might be great for watching football, but it’s not the best way to study Super Bowl ads. Did you really like — or hate — that one spot? How does it hold up in the glaring light of day? How do the ads stack up against one another? Here’s your chance to scrutinize all of them. Or just watch them a few more times.

AdAge has collected them all on one page. You’ll need Flash Player installed.

While European politicians continue to debate and scrutinize ever-amending drafts of the new EU Data Protection Regulation—which seeks to replace an outdated and flaw-ridden 1995 directive—they noted that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) reported that U.S. policymakers are “mounting an unprecedented lobbying campaign to limit the protections that European law would provide.”

While the EU is trying to put in place uniform legislation to protect consumer data privacy, US legislation like the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act undermine those efforts, according to the report.

Austin Meyer, creator of the popular and ultra-realistic flight sim X-Plane is facing a potentially destructive lawsuit by an East Texas patent troll, Uniloc. Meyer, who has worked on the simulator since 1995, isn’t dealing with a claim against his simulator or the game mechanics within. Instead, he’s being sued for using a simple copy-protection system found in almost all Android programs.

X-Plane has been around for Mac and Windows for years, and Mayer wasted little time adapting the detailed flight sim for iPhone, later bringing it to Android. He’s petitioned the White House for tort reform associated with patent lawsuits (he’s a long way off from getting the signatures needed, though) and he’s also looking for donations to help cover his own court costs.

Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer:

The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.

What a great mission.

Many thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week.

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MSN News:

The Etch A Sketch is one of the best known toys of the Baby Boom generation. French inventor André Cassagnes stumbled upon the idea in the 1950s and the core technology of the toy remains today. Cassagnes died Jan. 16 at the age of 86.

The origins of Etch A Sketch go back to the late 1950s, when Cassagnes was installing a factory light switch plate covered with a translucent decal.

Along with the Lite-Brite, the Etch A Sketch was one of the first “fancy” toys we got as kids. I never could draw anything other than a few straight lines on it though.

CNET:

Citing CNET’s disqualification of the Dish product for the Best of Show competition, CEA is seeking a new partner to run its Best of CES awards program.

Karen Chupka, senior vice president, events and conferences for CEA said, “We are concerned the new review policy will have a negative impact on our brand should we continue the awards relationship as currently constructed.”

This move by the organizer of CES is unsurprising and further confirms that CBS’ decisions continue to hurt CNET’s journalistic integrity.

Mashable:

One of America’s busiest railroad stations, Grand Central Terminal in New York, turns 100 years old. The iconic structure, located in the heart of Manhattan, serves thousands of passengers every day and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.

With sites like YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook, it’s possibly to take a tour through the last century at Grand Central.

When I lived in Connecticut, I always loved going through Grand Central – the architecture, the art and the people watching were always a highlight of every visit.

Stephen talks about iPhone, Android, Samsung, BlackBerry 10 and Windows. It’s a great article.

Three billion years after inanimate chemistry first became animate life, a newly synthesized laboratory compound is behaving in uncannily lifelike ways.

The particles aren’t truly alive — but they’re not far off, either. Exposed to light and fed by chemicals, they form crystals that move, break apart and form again.

It makes me think of this:

Seriously, CBS is just getting crazy.

“However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.”

If you haven’t changed your Twitter password lately, now would be a good time.

The Omni Group founder Ken Case gives us a look at the upcoming app.

Even if you’re an experienced designer, it’s never a bad time to refresh your memory a little with the structure of serif typefaces, a few recommendations and a little history.

There’s also Part 2.

Brian X. Chen:

Jeffrey Paul, a data security consultant, on Friday published a blog post pointing out a security flaw in Path for iPhone users. If a user posts a photo inside Path and writes a caption, the app can still share the city or other general location where the photo was taken — even if a user has turned off location sharing for Path in the iPhone’s privacy settings.

Oopsie.

This particular medical maneuver has worked for me for years.

Directed by Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) and featuring interviews and performances by the iconic musicians who made their careers in the studio, SOUND CITY tells the story of real rock n’roll history, and celebrates the human element of music, as Grohl gathers some of rock’s greatest artists to collaborate on a new album. Using Sound City’s legendary analog console, together they continue to create musical miracles in a digital world.

This is an absolute must-have movie.

This is great news. Congrats Brent!

These guys know what guitar amps are all about. You owe it to yourself to have a listen to these, no matter what type of music you like. Personally, I like the Zé Limited Run.

We estimate Apple shipped 17.7 million mobile phones for a record 34 percent share of the United States market in the fourth quarter of 2012. This was up sharply from 12.8 million units shipped and 25 percent share in Q4 2011. Apple has become the number one mobile phone vendor by volume in the United States for the first time ever. Apple’s success has been driven by its popular ecosystem of iPhones and App Store, generous carrier subsidies, and extensive marketing around the new iPhone 5 model. Samsung shipped 16.8 million mobile phones in the United States, for 32 percent share, during Q4 2012. This was a good performance from Samsung, as its market share rose 5 points from 27 percent a year earlier, but it was not enough to hold off a surging Apple. Samsung had been the number one mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008, and it will surely be keen to recapture that title in 2013 by launching improved new models such as the rumored Galaxy S4.

According to a breaking news report from the Korean news agency Yonhap, Samsung has agreed to buy a 5% stake in the Japanese company Wacom.

In a somewhat rambling press release translated from Japanese, Wacom indicated that the $58.2 million deal was done to enable Samsung to incorporate Wacom’s own stylus technology into its smartphones and tablets. Some Samsung devices like the Galaxy Note tablet and the Note smartphone already include a stylus. Wacom makes digital tablets used by graphic designers and illustrators for direct pen input to a Mac or PC.

Interesting speculation from Marco Arment. I have to admit, these larger screen devices are selling better than what I would have ever guessed.